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Episode 404: Tailor Patient Treatment Education for Non-Oncology Indications

Release Date: 02/27/2026

Episode 432: Long-Term Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Considerations for Oncology Nurses

The ONS Podcast

“It’s a chronic disease. It never goes away for some people, and so therefore it has these periods of remission where it’s really quiet and well controlled. Then there can be periods of flares where you’re actively engaged in treatment or it’s impacting other pieces. There’s this feeling patients have of, ‘When am I going to have that flare?’ You know, this anticipatory anxiety of, ‘When are things going to be done differently?’ or ‘When do I need to change?’” ONS member Caitlin Murphy, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, AOCNP®, chief nurse practitioner at Dana-Farber Cancer...

Episode 431: Oncologic Emergencies 101: Urinary Obstruction

The ONS Podcast

“Think about all the important things our kidneys do for the body. Those things are compromised. If we have excess buildup of toxins and waste in the body, you’re having problems with fluid reabsorption. Then you have also problems with electrolytes not being balanced. Then in turn, you have ongoing shutdown of systems. So the cardiopulmonary system gets compromise. Your circulatory system then gets compromised. And then all the things in the body that depend upon ongoing circulatory flow are then causing major resets in the system that need to be addressed,” ONS member Brenda S....

Episode 430: Leadership Unlocked: Is It Your Time to Serve?

The ONS Podcast

“If you are considering board service, I would say take the leap. Start with your local chapter. It will give you some valuable skills that will help prepare you when you are applying for your national level. And I always say, if you want to do it, just do it because what’s the worst that can happen? They can say no, but that doesn’t mean that you will never serve on a board. I always tell people delayed is not denied,” Cassandra Green, DNP, RN, OCN®, ONS member and past president of the Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation (ONCC) Board of Directors, told Evelyn Wempe, DNP,...

Episode 429: Radiation Site-Specific Side Effects: CNS Cancers

The ONS Podcast

“They’re really worried that radiation is going to be painful. So they come in for that first day of treatment very anxious. With our patients with brain cancer, we’re using the masks on the table, and those masks are very tight and hold their heads very, very still. So they’ll be very worried about being claustrophobic. We may start out the first day or two with a little bit of [lorazepam]. And they’ll come to me and they’ll say, ‘This really hasn’t been as bad as I thought it was going to be,’” ONS member Catherine McCluskey, BSN, RN, OCN®, ROCN™, radiation oncology...

Episode 428: Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Treatment Considerations for Oncology Nurses

The ONS Podcast

“Measurable residual disease is where I think the terminology fits best in that, it is intended to measure the amount of cancer cells that are present in the blood or bone marrow at the time the sample was collected. We can identify one cancer cell in a million. Where that can be really valuable is when we start to think about the duration of treatments and the response to some of our treatments,” ONS member Caitlin Murphy, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, AOCNP®, chief nurse practitioner at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®, TCTCN™, oncology clinical...

Episode 427: Pharmacology 101: Resistance Pathways

The ONS Podcast

“A good way of thinking about this is this is the survival of the fittest clone. There could be a portion of a cancer that naturally has some resistance or ability to survive a particular drug. And over time, as the other cells around it are dying off, that particular clone is able to replicate and continue to survive in the face of that drug therapy and eventually take over as being the fittest clone. At that point, we’re often seeing disease progression,” Danielle Roman, PharmD, BCOP, manager of clinical pharmacy services at the Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute in Pittsburgh,...

Episode 426: Tools to Support Patients and Nurses Through Medical Trauma in Oncology

The ONS Podcast

“When people with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] get quite avoidant—and that can be expressed in so many different ways—the implications can be really profound. I think an important invitation to oncologists and oncology nurses and primary care providers who care for people battling cancer is let’s explore what's underneath these avoidant behaviors. Is it a very practical thing? Or is it that underneath this avoidant behavior is really profound fear?” James C. Jackson, PsyD, research professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN, told Lenise Taylor, MN,...

Episode 425: How AI Can Help Healthcare Organizations Improve the Cancer Experience

The ONS Podcast

“In oncology specifically, where care is complex, artificial intelligence (AI) can really synthesize large volumes of clinical information, flag risks such as treatment complications, and support adherence to evidence-based pathways. For nurses specifically, this enables them more time for direct patient care, clinical judgment, and care coordination, and really practice to the top of their license while reducing repetitive time and administrative tasks,” Jenn Frith, DNP, RN, OCN®, NE-BC, associate vice president of clinical operations at Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, NC, told Jaime...

Episode 424: Radiation Site-Specific Side Effects: Cancers of the Pelvis

The ONS Podcast

“Think about what organs lie in the radiation field, and anything that lies in that radiation field is likely going to have some potential temporary—hopefully temporary—side effects. If you think about the pelvis, the things that live in there are the bladder, urethra, some bowel, rectum, reproductive organs, skin, some lymph nodes. And so, all of those things could potentially have associated side effects,” ONS member Kayla Kafka-Peterson, BSN, RN, ROCN™, nurse navigator and leader in the brachytherapy and peri-anesthesia programs at UCLA Health, in Los Angeles, CA, told Lenise...

Episode 423: Pharmacology 101: Interaction Pathways

The ONS Podcast

“When we think of drug interactions, specifically, the National Cancer Institute actually defines this as a change in the way a drug acts in the body when taken with certain other drugs, herbals, or foods or when taken with certain medical conditions. Drug interactions may cause the drug to either be more or less effective or cause effects on the body that are not expected,” Carissa Ganihong, PharmD, BCOP, oncology and bone marrow transplantation clinical pharmacist at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology...

More Episodes

“We print education sheets that we have, and we say, ‘Just ignore this part that says cancer. You’re getting this med but for a different indication.’ And then you have to really point out what our goals of care are. You’re using the information that, as oncology nurses, we like and love, but we’re having to cross it out and say, ‘Just read this portion and just do this here.’ And that can be challenging for the nurse and probably confusing for the patient,” ONS member Brandy Thornberry, RN, OCN^®, outpatient infusion and VAD supervisor at Logan Health in Kalispell, MT, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS^®, TCTCN™, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, during a conversation about education for patients receiving antineoplastic drugs for non-oncology indications. Taylor also spoke with ONS members Lizzy McMahon, BSN, RN, OCN^®, and Jennifer Lynch, BSN, RN, TCTCN™, about general antineoplastic treatment education and tailoring education in the stem cell transplantation setting.

Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0

Earn 0.75 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at courses.ons.org by February 27, 2027. The planners and faculty for this episode have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose. ONS is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

Learning outcome: Learners will report an increase in knowledge of best practices for educating patients receiving antineoplastic therapies across oncology, non‑oncology, and stem cell transplant settings.

Episode Notes

ONS Voice articles:

To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.

To find resources for creating an ONS Podcast club in your chapter or nursing community, visit the ONS Podcast Library.

To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email pubONSVoice@ons.org.

Highlights From This Episode

McMahon: “A great question would be to ask the patient what they already know and what they’re most concerned about or what their biggest questions are. This way, the nurse can tailor their education to make sure to focus on what the patient doesn’t know yet and what they’re most concerned about, while still touching on all the required education topics. … It’s also important for nurses to continually be assessing the patient’s readiness to learn throughout the education session, looking for nonverbal cues or verbal signs that the patient is overwhelmed or anxious because this is going to interfere with their ability to take in new information.” TS 3:49

Thornberry: “A lot of the education sheets and the products for them explain it like, ‘This is cancer,’ and more of an oncology perspective, so occasionally [non-oncology patients] can show up and be confused by it. I do feel like they come a little bit less prepared than our oncology patients. Our rheumatologists and neurologists, they sure try, but they just don’t have the support in that realm either. They’re full of every question you can imagine. They’ve never been to an infusion room. They don’t know what to bring. Can they drink water and have their meds beforehand? It’s a full gamut of really preparing them to get these for autoimmune or rheumatology-type issues.” TS 14:12

Lynch: “I really want to spend time with those patients to make sure that we are not assuming that they are coming to us with any knowledge or experience. I want them to be able to come to us with questions and trust their healthcare team and really sit down with them and say, ‘Okay, you don’t have cancer, but we’re using the word chemotherapy where we’re talking about cancer drugs.’… And we’re going to probably spend more time going over some of the basics about blood stem cells, types of cells that they grow into, how your body fights infection, what they’re going to be at risk for. The side effects can be pretty scary when you’re talking about them, especially back to back. So making sure that we are delivering the information that doesn’t put them in a panic mode… A lot of reassurance, as well, and just taking into consideration that, yes, this might have this whole other layer of anxiety to it because of the unknown.” TS 32:22

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